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- VENUS
AND
ADONIS
19
simple story of Venus and Adonis. Shakespeare drew crucial
hints for his superstructure from two independent episodes
of the Metamorphoses^ firstly from the wooing of the reluctant
Hermaphroditus by the maiden Salmacis (bk. iv), and secondly
from the hunting of the Calydonian boar (bk. viii). The
coyness, which is the main characteristic of Shakespeare's
Adonis, does not distinguish Ovid's Adonis, who is mildly
responsive to Venus' embraces ; it is the characteristic of
another of Ovid's mythical heroes, Hermaphroditus. Such
lines in Golding's rendering of the tale of Salmacis and
Hermaphroditus as
Leave off, (quoth he), or I am gone and leave thee at a
becke
With all thy tricks,
and
Striue, struggle, wrest and writh (she sayd) thou froward
boy thy fill,
Do what thou canst thou shalt not scape,
can be matched
almost
verbatim in
Shakespeare's poem.
There
is
nothing
faintly
resembling
them
in
Ovid's
tale
of
Venus and
Adonis.
The
white
figure
of the
boy Herma-
phroditus, gleaming
beneath
the water
as
he
bathes,
is
likened
by Ovid
to
an
image
in ivory or
a
white
lily
encased
in
clear
glass.' Adonis' white
hand
is
compared by
Shake-
speare to
A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
Or
ivory in an alabaster
band. (3(^3-4.)*
But
it is
possible that
Shakespeare interwove
this
Ovidian
*
In
liquidis translucet aquis,
ut
eburnca
siquis
Signa
tegat claro, vel
Candida
lilia,
vitro
(Ovid,
Met.
iv.
1%^-%).
' In Jove's Labour's
Lost^
ii.
i.
z^i-z^ Shakespeare quotes
as
symbolic of
extravagant
wealth, '■Jewels htcrystalior
some prince
to
buy
.
.
.
tend'ring
their
own worth, from where they were
glass'
d.'
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